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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoMadeleine Winer | DispatchProperty room manager Lt. Gary McNeal will be responsible for determining how the West Jefferson Police Department disposes of firearms.

Boxes of guns have piled up for 30 years in a locker in the West Jefferson Police Department’s
property room.

Now, it’s up to Lt. Gary McNeal to come up with a process for destroying evidence that is no
longer needed in police investigations.

Of 24 police agencies surveyed by
The Dispatch in Franklin and its six surrounding counties, West Jefferson’s in Madison
County is the only one that does not have a policy for disposing of confiscated guns. Police Chief
Terry Ward pledged to organize the property room when he became West Jefferson’s chief two years
ago.

“Right now, it’s in a recovery phase,” Ward said last week. “We rebuilt the property room to
where it’s organized, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Under Ohio law, police must obtain a court order to dispose of an unclaimed or forfeited
firearm, but how a gun is disposed of is up to each agency. Some melt guns or cut them into pieces
of scrap metal. Others keep the guns for use by officers or sell them to reputable dealers.

“It’s up to each individual department to go through protocols and build policies,” said Joseph
Morbitzer, president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police and the chief of Westerville’s
department.

Some officials from the 24 police agencies surveyed said they use several methods to dispose of
guns.

Pickerington police, for example, borrow the Jaws of Life from the fire department to cut some
guns in half. Others they melt down, use for training or sell.

Ohio State University police keep some weapons for their officers and melt the rest. Worthington
either cuts guns into pieces or sells or reuses them. Neither agency was able to say how many guns
it took in last year.

Seventeen departments said they melt firearms at a steel mill.

Sgt. Rich Weiner, a spokesman for the Columbus Division of Police, said guns are transported
under police escort to an undisclosed steel mill out of state. The secrecy is because “we don’t
want someone hijacking us,” Weiner said. “Our personnel will go there and watch the entire burn to
make sure no one takes one.”

The steel mill burns the guns at no charge as a courtesy to police agencies, Weiner said.

Columbus confiscated 2,436 guns last year, he said, guns that were found by officers, turned in
by citizens or used in crimes.

Bexley and Whitehall are among the agencies that cut up guns.

“I take them to the city garage and watch them get cut up into a couple of pieces with a band
saw,” said Tony Martin, a volunteer police officer who takes care of Bexley’s property room. Then
he deposits the pieces in trash containers throughout the city, he said.

Bexley disposed of three guns last year, Martin said.

Officials from 20 departments in central Ohio said they keep firearms for officers to use during
training or on duty.

Seven departments said they sell guns to a dealer and use the money or credit to purchase
firearms or ammunition. Some police officials said they wouldn’t sell guns, out of fear that the
weapons would end up back on the streets, but others don’t see that as a concern.

“We only sell to someone that is reputable,” Newark Police Sgt. Scott Snow said. “People we sell
to have laws they (must) follow.”

Because West Jefferson doesn’t yet have a formal disposal policy, 41 guns have accumulated in
the property room, McNeal said. “I’m trying to get everything together first, and we’ll go from
there.”

The plan, he said, is to melt guns at a nearby foundry, but he might not have formal storage and
destruction procedures in place for another year.

Reorganizing the property room is in addition to his regular duties, he noted. “I just want to
do it 100 percent right.”